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Chandigarh resident ‘spying’ for Pak’s ISI arrested
Came in contact with radicals abroad through Facebook and was eventually recruited by ISI, say Punjab Police
Punjab Police’s state special operation cell (SSOC) on Thursday arrested a Chandigarh resident suspected to be a spy for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from his house in Sector 40.
The accused, Tapinder Singh, for the past four years had been providing ISI sensitive documents, locations and other information about police stations and army bases in India, posing threat to the country’s national security, said police.
SSOC assistant inspector general of police (AIG) Ashwani Kapoor said Tapinder was arrested following secret information about his espionage activities. The police party from SSOC Mohali that arrested Tapinder also recovered two mobile phones from him.
“From the phones recovered, his WhatsApp chats with ISI agents, photographs and locations of various police stations and videos of recce of the SSOC building that were further sent to the ISI agents have been recovered, while a lot of previously divulged information has already been deleted by him,” the police official added.
Tajinder was booked for espionage under Sections 3, 4,5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act at the SSOC station in Mohali.
He was produced before a Mohali court that sent him to four-day police remand to ascertain backward and forward linkages.
Holds double MA from PU
Police said Tapinder was born and brought up in Chandigarh, and completed postgraduation in political science and Punjabi from Panjab University.
They said he came across radicals abroad through Facebook. They added him to their WhatsApp groups, where he came in touch with Pakistan’s intelligence agents, who recruited him as a spy to retrieve sensitive information on various police and military installations in and around Punjab.
Over the past four years, he had been gathering and providing them sensitive documents, locations, photographs and other information about these installations.
